Thursday, 13 February 2014

Draw together elements from Lonergan, Ratzinger, Plascencia, von Balthasar.
Love is unlimited and unrestricted by its essence (Lonergan, von Balthasar)
The word 'all' is frequently on the lips of Jesus.
Love does not recognize the language of obligation (von Balthasar)
Love seeks a response, though it does not depend on the response (Lonergan, Ratzinger, Plascencia)
"How wonderful that you are!" Love reaches the singularity; it is a combination therefore of agape and eros. It is eros that reaches the singular, that delights in this person. (Ratzinger, Plascencia)

Monday, 10 February 2014

To be added in a consideration of Lonergan's early thinking on religion:

Natural Desire to See God, 1C 88: is a state of pure nature, a world order in which no one receives grace, a concrete possibility? Lonergan talks about a religion that is natural. At 1C 90, he says that a world order without grace is a concrete possibility; but that this is not a central doctrine but only a marginal theorem. Renaissance theologians magnified this marginal theorem in Aquinas into a central doctrine: the state of pure nature.